FEVER

The cool, sweet earth is cool and sweet indeed,

To flesh that fever makes a cinder of,—

An angel with cool hands to cup his need,

In ministrations, kinder yet than love.

There, a cool cheek to lay against his own,

And rest for that hot blood's too restless will,

His hands to curve on root or clod or stone;—

And deep-dug earth is very, very still.

Yet some, remembering happiness he had

Of living things, of leaf and sun and air,

Could pity him his prison, and be sad,—

Not knowing how he is companioned there,

Nor how, for such as he and his great need,

The cool, sweet earth is cool and sweet indeed.